


Apocrypha Is Upon Us

by 7Threes



Series: Apocrypha is Upon Us [2]
Category: Tokyo Ghoul, tokyo ghoul re - Fandom
Genre: AU, Acid Trip Feels, Advanced English, Difficult to understand, Hubris, Loose and Obscure Plot, M/M, Non-Graphic Smut, Poetry, RIP Hide, Read :Re, Religious References, So Non-Graphic You Might Miss It, Spoilers, The Star and Sun Kaneki Feasted On To Live, Trippy, mentions of God - Freeform, musical themes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-13
Updated: 2017-08-09
Packaged: 2018-10-04 02:34:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 11,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10265654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/7Threes/pseuds/7Threes
Summary: "Apocrypha is upon us." They both remembered, in acid trip dreams instantaneous along their fingers.Shivers down their spines, tracing the cover of a leather strewn book.





	1. Aerials

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry in advance about the trippy shit all up to until Under The Bridge where it begins to clear up. Please, it's good, just... Be patient.

 

We lose ourselves but we find it all.

When you lose small mind you free your life.

When you free your life eternal prize.

 

* * *

 

Morphine was different, now. The effects fading in his eyes as a rainbow dances along the edge of his sight, demons echoing their voices of a life before that is forgotten.

He couldn't provide epitaph to his previous self before it faded behind fake eyes.

 

* * *

 

 _Haise_.

It sounded like “Heiße”, am I wrong?

 _Sasaki_.

World, the grey in between. So many meanings, like a work of Kafka.

If only he could laugh at him now, but all life is finite. All life ends, eventually becoming that which is ridiculed.

 

* * *

 

 

 

“ _Participate in genocide with us._ ”

That's what they asked of him.

He'd be shunned, condemned because he was a freak.

He knew it, too.

He wish there were more to the world than just cruelty and decadent beings.

His wish already was, because there are those contrite, and there are those who niggardly step through their everyday.

There's also the ignorant, the victims, that which lurks in nadir.

He wondered which one he was.

 

* * *

 

Fight with limbs.

Killers from the killed that killed with those killers.

Incomprehensible banter, exchanged between oneself in their own mind.

No longer monolithic, they find solace in simple insanity.

That soothes the guilt, at least for a while when he looks at her face.

 

* * *

 

He smells something sorrowful, but it's in the heat of battle.

Snakes, snakes, snakes; tread on them lightly- they have sharp tongues.

Venom in the teeth, venom in his breath, venom in his words; shouting invective words to him.

Familiar voice and face, death upon him doesn't remind him.

The snake showed him that he himself was in nadir.

 

* * *

 

Owls, cooing and stalking their prey vigilantly even in the thick of night.

Fruit on the mind and flesh on the tongue, licking as he cries and remembers who he was before his humanity was sundered.

 

* * *

 

Gaunt, the delicate sword sits in his wheeled seat, creaking with each turn, waiting for his king to return and wield him once more.

 

* * *

 

Twist does his face, flimsy aluminum shield rests alone and dusty. He waits for the nothing to be filled.

 

* * *

 

She hates him now.

So much for being the same.

So much for being a filthy lier.

 

* * *

 

He watches him from above, stomach spilling itself over. The sun calls him back, but he cannot leave.

 

* * *

 

Cold stare, glasses, death.

He's also father.

Strange how life is, strange how death is.

Either way, the prince who knows not he is readies to place a deadly crown on his head.


	2. In The Court of the Crimson King

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Can you hear it?
> 
> The laughing?

Akira was finally safe, the suppressants administered.

The One-Eyed King, that's what he was.

Yet, he was weak when it came to life.

_Wasn't everyone?_

He left the room to go to the roof, where Amon stood and looked distantly at nothing in particular.

_This was real._

_Not what I had created years ago._

_Reality._

_“Amon.”_

Kaneki simply spoke, receiving a look from him as well.

“Eyepatch.”

He simply replied.

A mutual silence was heavy between them, Kaneki’s once-again white hair stringy and dry blew slightly in the zephyr, their eyes locking strongly with resolve and also an existing whisper of exhaustion.

A successful experiment, a failed copy.

A ghostly echo in their voice, a strong and adamant resolve to remain.

Kaneki Ken and Amon Koutarou.

* * *

 

_**Ιf οηιγ Ι ωεrε sτrοηgεr, Ι cουιδ’νε sανεδ τhεm αιι.** _

_**Ιτ’s αιι mγ fαυιτ τhατ Ι’m α ωεακιιηg.** _

_**Ι’m τhε οηε το βιαmε.** _

_**Ι αm τhε mεss.** _

_**Cιεαη mε υρ, ωαsh mε αωαγ, Ι’m αη υgιγ mεmοrγ.** _

* * *

 

_It's all a mess._

_Goat, the creation of someone he should loathe._

_Yet, he couldn't bring himself to._

_In this kingdom, he does not rule all that the light touches._

* * *

 

_**Cιεαη οf διsτrαcτιοη.** _

_**Gοατ, τhε crεατιοη οf sοmεοηε sο νεrγ sιcκεηιηg.** _

_**Υετ, hε αδmιrεδ hεr ιηsαηιτγ.** _

_**Ιη τhιs κιηgδοm, hε rυιεs τhε δαrκεsτ οf sτrετchεs.** _

* * *

 

_“We finally get to speak, and it's as if the world is falling apart.”_

Both of them thought it, and only one said it.

* * *

 

Beautiful stretches of road, twilight devours the pavement.

Sorrow eats the path, regret digests it.

Awaiting his Sunchild we try to maintain hope, but he is gone and never coming back.

As the last brick of the quaint road crumbles, we await to be swallowed by the void.

* * *

 

“Sorry it ended up like this.”

Kaneki absently said, thinking distantly as he looked at the view from off the rooftop.

It reminded him of the dream he had when he met with Amon that last time as someone blind to the fear of death.

Now they both had indulged willingly in genocide, both humored the world of a monster, and both had thought up solutions.

It never happened in the first place, but they remember Ruhekampf.

The struggle for peace, the struggle to maintain peace, the struggle within peace.

They remembered the phrase in a book they never read.

_**Aροcrγρhα ιs υροη υs.** _

_“What does Apocrypha mean?”_

Both wondered together, that very moment their minds were in conglomerate.

* * *

 

**_Τhοτh sιmριγ ιαυghεδ ιη hιs βrοοδιηg gιοrγ._ **

**_“Αmοη αηδ Καηεκι, δουr αs γου αrε, Ι ωιsh γου cουιδ sεε ωhατ Αροcrγρhα ιs.”_ **

**_Τhεγ διδη’τ κηοω τhατ Αροcrγρhα ωαs υροη τhεm. Αροcrγρhα cοmεs frοm τhε ωοrδ αροcrγρhαι, mεαηιηg τhατ ωhιch ωε sεε mαγ ηοτ βε τhε τrυτh. Αροcrγρhα ιs τhε rεαιm τhατ hοιδs τhατ ωhιch ιs αροcrγρhαι._ **

* * *

 

The city lights remind one of the sickly sounds of the corrupt and lying playing happy faces and hiding hungry ones.

* * *

 

> **_τhε rυsτεδ chαιηs οΓ ρrιsοη Μοοηs_ **
> 
> **_αrε shαττεrεδ βγ τhε sμη_ **
> 
> * * *
> 
>  
> 
>   
>    
> 

_An old darkness that enslaved the people are shattered by a bright and promising light._

* * *

 

> **_Ι ωαικ α rοαδ hοrιζοηs chαηgε_ **
> 
> **_τhε τουrηαmεητ's βεgμη_ **

* * *

****

_As we travel the world, views will differ; sparking the conflict of superiority._

* * *

 

> **_Τhε ρυrριε ριρεr ριαγs hιs τυηε  
>  _ **
> 
> **_Τhε chοιr sοΓτιγ sιηg_ **
> 
> * * *
> 
>  

_Purple as he screams and pipes up his thoughts, mournful voices sing._

* * *

 

> **_τhrεε ιυιιιβιεs ιη αη αηcιεητ τοηgμε  
>  _ **
> 
> **_Γοr τhε cουrτ οΓ τhε crιmsοη κιηg_ **
> 
> * * *

_A dirge to the truth-telling man for the sake of the culling machine that spills blood; war._

* * *

 

“Don't feel bad for me.”

Amon replied.

_‘You wouldn't have wanted pity, either.’_

The words that went unspoken, but were heard clearly.

It's the pride that demands this course of action, and the wrath that they hold within that calls for justice.

Attero Dominatus, Latin for _“I destroy terror”_ , yet what terror was there?

_Terror born out of terror._

* * *

 

> **_Τhε κεερεr οΓ τhε cιτγ κεγs_ **
> 
> **_ρυτ shυττεrs οη τhε δrεαms_ **

* * *

 

_The divine power that suggests many paths has shut out the individuality._

* * *

> _**Ι ωαιτ ουτsιδε τhε ριιgrιm's δοοr** _
> 
> _**ωιτh ιηsμΓΓιcιεητ schεmεs** _

* * *

_The traveler who has seen many things and experienced many things; his wisdom has left me, as I lack originality._

* * *

 

> **_Τhε βιαcκ qυεεη chαητs τhε Γυηεrαι mαrch  
>  _ **
> 
> **_Thε crαcκεδ βrαss βειιs ωιιι rιηg_ **

* * *

 

_The hierarch of malintent engenders mourning of those who have died in war._

* * *

 

> **_Το sυmmοη βαcκ τhε Γιrε ωιτch  
>  _ **
> 
> **_Το τhε cουrτ οΓ τhε crιmsοη κιηg_ **

* * *

 

_Asking for what purpose they have died, she sparks war in the minds of the people._

* * *

 

“Back then I had so many questions for you.”

Amon nostalgically reverbed.

“What happened to that?”

Kaneki quietly asked, hiding the fact he had those same questions burning inside until he experienced life as Haise.

A silence thicker than the sheets of blight that hugged the world fell between them. They knew each other, their reasoning and logic, and they knew what the other thought. While their experiences weren't exactly the same, seeing the world through all sets of eyes and coming to their own conclusions.

“I saw the world you saw.”

Amon replied, looking to the overcast sky as it cried the tears that he and Kaneki could not.

* * *

 

> _**Τhε gαrδεηεr ριαητs αη ενεrgrεεη  
>  ** _
> 
> _**ωhιιsτ τrαmριιηg οη α Γιοωεr** _

* * *

 

_The Everyman builds a permanent monument, trampling on the world’s delicate and sacred infinite art._

* * *

 

> _**Ι chαsε τhε ωιηδs οΓ α ρrιsm shιρ  
>  ** _
> 
> _**Το ταsτε τhε sωεετ αηδ sουr** _

* * *

 

_A bringer of great change is the ship, and the prism exposes all the purest and true colors from invisible wavelengths. I examine the good of the colors, and the bad._

* * *

> _**Thε ραττεrη ζυggιεr ιιΓτs hιs hαηδ** _
> 
> _**Τhε οrchεsτrα βεgιη** _

* * *

 

_Repeating the same motion, we command many different people throughout the same piece that is life._

* * *

 

> _**αs sιοωιγ τυrηs τhε grιηδιηg ωhεει** _ _**  
> ** _
> 
> _**Ιη τhε cουrτ οΓ τhε crιmsοη κιηg** _

* * *

 

_As we fuel life with our wheat and end it with sharpened blades, all under rule of misery._

* * *

 

Somewhere, somewhen, Frank Zappa laughs at the world and the misery that's upon it. They had not taken message from his songs, that while seriousness can envelop the world, lyrics may brighten the day for even the smallest amount of people. That's all that us puny mortals could do for each other; can do.

So while Amon and Kaneki stand on the rooftop, reminiscing in the bustle of Tokyo, they must remind themselves that life is finite.

Even as the king, Kaneki remembers when he was afraid; just as Amon remembers the days at the orphanage.

Sometimes they forget they're afraid, but they must pretend it's gone for the sake of those who look up to them. It never really leaves, even as the great changes they are

Once again, they exchange gazes.

Both of them have red and tainted eyes full of resolve, and that which is human that dreams of the day they may cry once more.

* * *

 

> _**Οη sοΓτ grαγ mοrηιηgs ωιδοωs crγ  
>  ** _
> 
> _**I'mΤhε ωιsε mεη shαrε α ζοκε** _

* * *

 

_A woman set into misery as the cynical laugh at the humanity and misfortune of others. They are not touched by the same despair._

* * *

 

> _**Ι rυη το grαsρ δινιηιηg sιgηs  
>  ** _
> 
> _**Tο sατιsΓγ τhε hοαχ** _

* * *

_I run to prove my divinity; why I am falsely superior to the people to cull and control them._

* * *

> _**Τhε γειιοω ζεsτεr δοεs ηοτ ριαγ  
>  ** _
> 
> _**Βυτ gεητιγ ρυιιs τhε sτrιηgs** _

* * *

 

_The malicious liars indulge, but to not joke; instead, they manipulate their puppets._

* * *

 

> _**Αηδ smιιεs αs τhε ρυρρετs δαηcε  
>  ** _
> 
> _**Ιη τhε cουrτ οΓ τhε crιmsοη κιηg** _

* * *

 

_He laughs at their misery, his pawns dancing in the desolate despair of war._

* * *

 

“You’ve never told me your name.”

Amon recalls amidst a cloud of memories.

Kaneki blinks before sighing, remembering how misery loves company. The memory of that illusion, the one when they last met as simply ghoul and investigator, was of foolish hope.

He wonders if Amon saw the dream, too.

* * *

 

Eyepatch, an enigmatic entity until he had seen through all eyes.

There were ignorant times he had, the orphanage was something of a bliss period for him.

There were the times as someone who indulged in genocide as an investigator of the CCG. He saw the creatures as monsters, freaks, and killers only. All until one night, rainy and fate-filled with warm blood mixing with the watery pavement.

Then there was now; the eyes of a victim to venomous fate, experimentation and failure.

He wondered if Eyepatch ever had denied himself from eating people. Yet again, that's probably what happened to him. Eyepatch because a kakuja, cannibalistic in nature because he didn't want to kill the innocent.

Just like himself.

“Kaneki.”

Eyepatch broke the silence.

“Kaneki Ken.”

* * *

 

Plagued by dreams and nightmares, we rest lonely in the desert in despair as we give up searching.

We knew not what we searched for, but we found panacea in the sun.

If only we knew the sun would just burn us faster, and the desert would swallow our rapidly decaying memory; forever to be forgotten in the boundless sand.

* * *

 

Amon remembered that name, miraculously.

The kid from Kamii University involved with the steel beam incident.

The kid who worked at that old coffee shop, just beside the sprawling buildings in the 20th Ward; barely noticeable.

Hideyoshi, the messenger boy at the office- a distant memory from seemingly a lifetime ago, often would talk about Kaneki with Seidou; his best friend.

Things seemed to unravel, the truth seemed close but so far.

It was likely that Hideyoshi joined the CCG to get information about Kaneki because he knew his little secret; turned into a ghoul by Kanou.

He wondered if Kaneki saw it, too. Saw the image that last time they met, just as Investigator and ghoul.

Saw the white and cold walls of Cochlea, Amon questioning him empty of words and full of soundless answers.

* * *

 

“I guess it all makes sense, then.”

Amon muttered to himself.

“I wouldn't say that.”

Kaneki cryptically stated, seemingly with absent reasoning.

“There's still things that you and I both don't know everything about each other's stories, and perhaps we never will; our stories aren't over yet.”

And it was true.

What went unspoken was;

_‘Our stories are only complete on the day we die.’_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is this a Jojo reference?
> 
> Not really, I just love progressive rock lol


	3. My Mistress The Sea (Part 1/2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It feels so good to be wrong.

Today, Thoth was smoking out of the shell of a hermit, laying back as they laughed cheerfully in an absentminded practice of false content.

He looked at the sea that hung in the sky, a reflection of him in the rippling depths of parallel existences. With all truth, there is an equal and opposite truth in an equal and opposite universe. He continued to laugh as he saw Kaneki and Amon questioning in their heads about equal and opposite dreams.

Thoth looks over to Zappa and the Crimson King, smiling cheekily as he is reminded that even if he doubts they will ever find the truth, they still ended up coming here to bask in the eternal seas that is the bridge between reality.

“There's one that looks a lot like you.”

Thoth tells Frank Zappa matter-of-factly, silly look on his face unfading.

“Is it the one with the book?”

Zappa asks, scratching his long and glorious mane of curly dark hair.

“Yeah. More like you with shorter hair. She's staring right at us.”

Thoth confirms, pointing down to the sea that lay below their feet. The person looking through looks almost ghastly, their skin pale as death and hairy arms and legs of smooth, somewhat kempt dark curls. Their face is heart-shaped, nose is rather short coming down and wide at the end- like an Italian. Their lips are faintly the color of red, chapped at the outer skin; hair short, dark brown and curly- stopping just around the end of the jawline and forming a mane like a lion, a crimson stripe through the left side of the crown.

The most stunning part was their eyes. An almost ethereal green piercing even the most light-obscuring waters, through any color windowpane; their eyes would always remain a stunning green.

They write in their book about peace struggle.

* * *

 

Kaneki felt a stare boring through him, coming from above his head; no-one was there. Just the sky that wrapped overcast around him; he stood just below the eye of the storm, moon and starlight kissing his milky white tones.

Amon looked up too- he must've felt it as well.

Kaneki noted that Amon’s eyes had locked on something; a constellation?

He looked up to see what grabbed Amon's interest so quickly, becoming enthralled by the vision himself.

“I’ve never seen stars like that before.”

Amon commented, eyes glassed over with the hues that hail from the sky.

“Yeah.”

Kaneki agreed, almost not hearing the words over the buzz of his wonder.

Two green lights brightly cutting through the darkness of the sky. Though they knew that stars were amalgams of super hot plasma pulled in by relentless gravity, the two stars seemed to be cold and empty; like the piercing stare of a child that could look through the whole essence of your soul in an instant, and weigh your worth.

Odd, how they knew the stars felt like eyes.

* * *

 

“She sees them.”

Zappa slaps his knee, chuckling lightly.

The Crimson King is quiet, poking at the sand with a stick as he hunched over a little nothing he made.

“Not too funny. She sees through most things, but never herself.”

“Don't be too sure.”

Thoth turns his crescent eyes into full sparks of seriousness.

“Never underestimate a silent child.”

* * *

 

I see them all, talking and laughing over the plights of others.

I know they watch because they cannot feel it any longer. They watch me because they know that I one day will become greater than them.

I can watch them, and even that which is beyond them.

I can see those two, looking right at me and wondering where I came from.

I wonder if they can see me, and see my dreams like I can theirs.

The large one, burly bulwark of a man. He’d be a textbook knight, the one you think of when a club bouncer comes to mind, or a man digging through the nothingness.

That's what he's doing; I can see him and his aura.

Reds around the bottom of the eyes, a stark and powerful white within them. His black hair has tendrils that reach into the abyss and tie him to it, sharp eyebrows cutting deeply into his brain and eyes, a vibrant red this time. His skin is mostly blue, fading into red where he has scars. His brain is completely red. That's where most wounds are. Around him coughs orange and blue fire, green at the tips of his cracked and rigid fingers. His lips are black, and sealed shut as he tries to swallow his pride and nothing else.

The other one is shorter, seemingly scrawnier; gaunt, but compact with dense muscle structures. He looks like he’d be instant fodder at first glance, but the longer I look, the longer the white divinity of his hair wraps into the void that once tried swallowing him. There are streaks of black in it, all like scars of past times- ignorant times.

His nails are dark red, chipped and curled greatly into the palms of his white skin. His eyes are gray, but much color swirls in them- indescribable in the sense; they may be gray, but they swirl and refract like a prism. The bottom of his eyes are purple, fading into the white divinity of his skin.

His breath is a mix between green and blue; a luminous cyan much like the faint glow in his seemingly only gray eyes. His fingers and toes are black and green with decay, his brain swirls with the sea.

Both of their souls seem to be attached by the hairy tendrils, linked but separate; a symbiotic relationship between the King of Zeit and his Black Knight.

They both dream the same dreams, touching the leather cover of an old clasped collection of pages in my handwriting.

If only they knew that Thoth let me take his name.

* * *

 

Kaneki blinked at the sky and felt the coldness of the starry gaze envelop him, like the coils of the dead were wrapping around his soul.

He learns a name, and it seems like Amon has too, as he slides a glance to him at all the same moment.

It's the voice of a child, but sounding too weary to be just that.

She calls herself by a nickname first.

_The Mistress; the Sea._

She then says her real name.

_Maelstrom._

* * *

 

Their souls are so very warm, a mixture of ambition, idealism, and love.

Love is on many different scales, but essentially is the feeling one gets when they enjoy the atmosphere of another, willing to sacrifice everything just for that atmosphere to stay a little longer.

They hold so much love in their souls, it sickens me almost at their twisting greed.

As my soul touches theirs, I feel that I might explode. Me, with my green piercing eyes and faint blues under my eyes- white and gray skin lining my fortress; my brain is so many colors, I forgot that it might explode their minds if I'm not too careful.

Funny, the King’s breath is the same color as mine.

I wonder why I'm so cold. Have I grown cynical? Have I become another icicle hugging the ceiling of the Cavern of Death?

No, I remind myself that the Sea always gets cold as it gets deeper. The deeper I go, the more that I find. Though my body may not be warm like theirs, my brain is full of plasma-heated everythings, everywheres, everywhens, and everyhows that leak into my eyes.

I touch the King’s forehead with one of my faint purple fingers, seeing his thoughts as I leak in some of mine.

* * *

 

Kaneki feels a flash of warmth pulsing on his forehead; the only warning before a throbbing pain of another enters and claws at his insides. It reminds him of the centipede that clawed to try and stop hearing the horrors from inside his head.

The voice of Maelstrom silently whispers to him reassuringly.

_“Do not worry. The pain is not yours to possess.”_

The voice isn't really feminine one bit, but actually full of the sounds of wisdom. It chimes like that of a child, but there is a faint echo of weariness- like an overcast over a relentless riptide which a child is swept under, never to be found the same.

He wouldn't be surprised if that's what happened to her, anyway.

Kaneki hears her laugh slightly, wondering what's so funny.

* * *

 

I just figured out this one’s name; Kaneki Ken. I resist every urge to just shove my hand through his temporal lobe to find his answers as fast as possible, but I might kill him if I did that here.

He's not like most people, his soul is gentle but his skin rough, fighting on both the inside and outside to remain who he is so he won't be forgotten.

He's like me, with the same type of soul.

He's got the _Schizoid Soul_ , and as do. I.

Except he still sees the world in grayscale, while I see all of the colors and light.

I'm sure you were given cones in those ambitious eyes burning with resolve, right Kaneki?

* * *

 

He hears her thoughts, echoing and mingling amongst his.

He wonders to himself so much about her, enigmatic, cold and wise; so young.

He wonders what happened to make her this way, and which a faint voice within her many say;

_“She learned that she could see with her mind, and gave up trying to give art frames.”_

Another chimed in.

_“She who sees through the souls with her piercing eyes, through the rips of possibility, through the chains of false fates.”_

Another.

_“Flew too high with wings of wax, paid her toll of great tax.”_

_“Sought the solutions, knows the answers, never cares to change them, either.”_

_“Plagued with three-toes, four-eyes, and six tongues, she tried and failed to test the lies.”_

_“War ate her away, she sought pity; learned she didn't need any.”_

Her eyes are burned on the back of his lids.

Maelstrom, an old word, old english, old thing. The tides must be the oldest thing on Earth, aside from layers upon layers of prehistoric rock.

The name suits her, and he wonders if it was a name she gave herself.

_“Pay no mind to them. I shouldn't be something that intrudes here, but I am looking through for peace struggle.”_

Maelstrom directly tells him.

He really wants to back away from her coldness and stop her intrusion, but it's like her invisible hands are on his soul.

Then, a voice chimes in again;

_“Apocrypha is upon us!”_

* * *

 

Kaneki was squirming in his sleep, Amon had noticed because he was awoken by the sound of his mid-sleep antics.

In his sleep, he faintly remembered a strange dream involving twin stars that felt like staring eyes.

Amon sighed as he looked over to Kaneki.

He had passed out after sitting with Amon on the rooftop, absently remembering things until then.

Amon wondered what Kaneki's skin would feel like- if it would be warm or cold. It's so bright it makes him look like he belongs in the night sky, but it's also so white it reminds him of ice and snow.

It was much like the idea of his hair; it looks white and stringy, but he wonders the actual feel of the fibers.

And Amon wasn't necessarily a patient person; he would seek his answers as swiftly as possible, that's just his nature.

He reaches out to touch and see, but feels that Kaneki is cold even before he lays his hand on him.

That's definitely not natural.

His first thought was that Kaneki was dead, but it didn't make much sense that he was squirming just moments before.

That's when he noticed Kaneki was no longer moving.

Amon's eyes widened, moving swiftly to check Kaneki's pulse, pressing lightly on the colder-than-death skin.

* * *

 

Kaneki had just noticed Amon was missing from his side, wondering how he was able to run off but not himself.

_“He woke up.”_

Maelstrom spoke, sounding rather disappointed.

_“I can only see through the fabrics when people are dreaming.”_

“The fabrics?”

Kaneki questioned, surprised when he was finally able to see Maelstrom.

She wasn't anything feminine at all. She looked like a sea foam ripple in the cast ocean, but her breath was like a haunting fog.

_“Your skin is hard to get past. You hide so much beneath it, it's rather sad.”_

Maelstrom hummed, removing her green finger from his stark forehead.

“You don't have any skin.”

Kaneki retorted, not really sure what he was talking about.

_“Sure I do. Just never here, or anywhere else but where I was born.”_

Maelstrom replied.

“Where were you born?”

Kaneki asked; what couldn't he ask? He has so much beneath his skin, just as she said.

_“Up there, a place that you never can go.”_

Maelstrom pointed to the sky, to the piercing green eyes.

Kaneki looks down to her, and sees she has the same green eyes.

* * *

 

_One second had passed, and nothing._

* * *

 

“What are you looking for from here- from me?”

Kaneki asked; another question.

There will always be questions, most with multiple answers; most answers are other questions.

_“The answer to both his and your questions.”_

Maelstrom simply said, like there was nothing to it.

“What do you mean? What question? Who are you talking about?”

Kaneki went on and on.

_“The answer to the question you share with Amon; ‘did he see it too?’”_

Maelstrom sighed. She seemed tired, weary of speaking.

_“In a sense you did, but you know not what you both saw.”_

“Why did you come all the way over here, then?”

Kaneki sought so many answers, it almost seemed like he was a kid again, asking his mom about kanji.

Except you know, he's asking an ethereal dreamstalker about the answers to seemingly nonsensical questions.

_“Because the dream is where you first grazed the Truth in ink with your invisible fingers.”_

Maelstrom cryptically answered.

* * *

 

_Two seconds have passed; still nothing._

* * *

 

Frank Zappa licks at the saltwater of the ground, awaiting for Thoth to come back with the currents of time.

Everything was slow and boring without Thoth. The know-it-all deity had his mundane charms, that sure was true.

In his boredom, Zappa decided to start looking at people and label them.

Amon and Kaneki were men.

Furuta and Donato were muffins.

* * *

 

_“Thoth is coming.”_

Maelstrom commented as she pointed to the singular gold star closing in on the fabrics of his dream.

“What does ‘Apocrypha is upon us’ mean?”

Kaneki asks, seeking one last answer from someone who he thought was wise.

He was never really a person of superstition, nor did he care much for religion. Yet, he wonders if this possible hallucination is real.

_“Apocrypha is upon us. If I were to tell you, you’d know too much. The road to finding the answer in yours to take, not mine; I already have.”_

Maelstrom responded before looking up to Thoth- an amorphous light of gold, faint eye of luminous cyan.

* * *

 

Tsukiyama is a muffin.

Banjou was a puffin’.

Matsuri didn't know nuthin’.

Hide.

Hideyoshi Nagachika.

Zappa is unsure if he's a man or a muffin; he's covered with black napkins.

* * *

 

_Three seconds have just passed._

They seem forever long, but Amon feels warmth returning, a slight ripple through his neck.

* * *

 

Kaneki wonders in the back of his shuddery mind if Maelstrom perhaps was the entity his mother's soul was birthed from. He wants to believe that he saw the faint and soft eyes of his mother within the swirling green light of Maelstrom’s.

He wants to pretend she came into his dream and gave him an idea to what path he must take.

He didn't know that there were many pieces of Maelstrom, he even possessing one.

He knows not that he possesses her eyes and mind.

His eyes may not be striking green and otherworldly, but they were like lenses into his mind; like silver mirrors reflecting the color of his thoughts and emotions.

His mind may not be powerful enough to cross into others’ dreams, but he thinks just as she does.

She wants so bad to end the fate.

He wants so bad to end the hate.

He wonders who Thoth is, too.

Perhaps he's his father. He always did remember him as a bright light in happier times. Thoth is the god of knowledge, so it wouldn't be strange that he had great interest in books.

While Maelstrom certainly is not his mother, Thoth could be seen as his father quite easily.

Before he knew it, his eyes were filled at the bottom lids with salty, clear, and cool kisses of little nothing driplets.

He denied that they were tears.

He knew he couldn't cry.

Not now.

It wasn't time yet.

* * *

 

There was a gasp from Kaneki, grey eyes flying open to meet the sight of the clouds drizzling down still, still crying for him, still copying his iris color scheme.

He lets himself sit up, hugs his knee as Amon takes care not to frighten.

“Amon?”

Kaneki simply muttered into the flesh of his knee.

Amon was surprised at the alertness Kaneki displayed.

“Yeah?”

“Did you see it too?”

Kaneki absently asked.

Always questions.

“See what?”

“See Ruhekampf.”

Kaneki elaborated.

The few seconds fell to eternity. It's as if Maelstrom couldn't keep time, sleeping when the storm needs her to stir.

The drizzles of rain fell cold, familiar in a memory that never was. Kaneki and Amon waited for the sanguine-iron solution spill from their lost and broken minds and mix with the waters- wash away their sin, their faith, their memories, their cold.

Like a night in an alley, touched little with the hues of city light and the all-seeing eyes of Maelstrom painting a firestorm on the painting without frame.

“Yes.”

Amon replied, silently; softly, sentimental delicacy served not on a plate, but on soundwaves breaking through the ripples of the cold and damp air.

Now Kaneki wondered where Maelstrom was from that he could never go. He didn't mind if the answer was Heaven, because his hands are too shaky to rest in peace.

In fact, he wanted his funeral to be like that of a Viking’s.

Fire is like a life, as it eats everything around it to fuel itself, changing that which it devours forever chemically. The tides of the ocean is like the world, as the ripples move one through life and change them, like how they change life.

Vessel forever adrift on meandering ripples, he becomes one with the world’s infinite art.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sing Me A Fiction was pretty good when it existed. Check them out :3


	4. Son Et Lumière | Inertiatic ESP

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clipside of the pinkeye flight  
> I'm not the percent you think survives  
> I need sanctuary in the pages of this book  
> Guestating with all the other rats  
> Nurse said that my skin would need a graft  
> I am of pockmarked shapes  
> The vermin you need to loathe

Now I'm lost.

He saw me and me, Thoth and Maelstrom.

It's odd how I have so many pieces to me, so many sides, so many masks I can't remember to me.

When I look into the King’s eyes, I see myself.

Indeed, they are like mirrors to one’s soul. Odd how he can't see his own soul in his reflection.

I sometimes forget myself, I have so many different parts of myself; all that which I have written about. Some of it is known and published, some unknown to the most, most disappeared until my own head.

I am Maelstrom, Thoth, Maethrillian, Elak Kval- everyone worth a name in my books.

Yorskaag, mighty god of fire, faith, love, and ambition; he is the burning inside my head and heart.

Knight, Yorskaag’s alias, another name Kasgyor; lonely and quiet, he pretends he is mortal and a bulwark. He is my skin.

Elak Kval, the hatred of war, kindling of values, spirit of the past, bearer of guilt and built for blame in his battle started by the nothingness inside him. He is a fragment of my spirit.

Maethrillian, the weary warlord, regret weighs heavy in his head, nostalgia calling him back home to the machine-men he was born from. He is another fragment.

Xenos Kíndyos; name meaning stranger in Greek. Sometimes I am distant like a stranger, sometimes ruthless in the eyes and strong in my words. He is fragment to another piece of me.

Trispec; the one with three eyes. He is filthy in the tongue, steps quake the mud under his soles; a revolutionary torn also by sorrow and war.

Kelcious Vadamee, an idea; faint and fading like most things. He carries memories and the sorrow I held heavy in my soul in a darker time.

Styx, I cross him because in my eyes he is weak. I am not afraid of the forbidden, nor the holy land that is sacred and never to be stomped on. I am Hubristic, because I am never afraid of divinity, but am afraid to be forgotten.

Cruciatus, the filthy and torturing. I smile regrettably when suffering falls upon others. An old part of me; the oldest. I tried to kill him, but none can end the horrid and bestial nature of humans.

Imaculina, uncertain and beautiful- loves her father greatly, fears that ash and sickness may consume her.

Ocül, god of the sea, brother to Yorskaag; I am of the sea, and embrace the fact that life was born from it, and will die from it. Time is the tide.

Lütama, god of the moon. When I was young, I gazed to the sky instead of the blood-soaked soul beneath my feet. I want to return my gaze, but before I can progress, I must fix the present.

Dremyüd, deity of horrors and war and sickness and suffering, much like Elak Ond. They laugh together with Cruciatus, and I regret they do. Eventually, they redeem themselves, forgived for their sins.

Dremyukhlan, false father to the gods you know not of. He lies to protect, and that I am content with.

Dustzkhlün, the creator of all by technicality. He ran from death, and wallowed, creating his brother to fix it.

Ürtas, the brother. Strong and dependable, knight and thief. He understands all, that life may not be altered by any divine force, nor changed by nothing.

Thoth, master of knowledge. Like a synonym with Ürtas.

Maelstrom, powerful waves of time. She destroys and created everything, known and unknown.

I am them all.

Ürtas, I can call myself.

I can call myself all of these names, but there's only one that's really me.

I look like Maelstrom, understand like Ürtas, think feel like Elak Kval and Yorskaag, and hide behind my skin as Kasgyor.

I have three toes, four eyes, six tongues, seven ears, and infinite layers of skin.

Each layer of skin is a question to myself, a mask I am unsure is actually part of my true self, my pure existence.

My ears all hear different things, but they're all the same in the end. I hear more than most think, and they wonder why I still don't cry for them.

My six tongues all say so many things, taste the colors, sing the tunes. My voice is so beautiful, so ugly, so monotone; they wonder why I still can't cry with my four eyes.

My four eyes see more than most, colors of prism, lights of the rods. The souls, the meanings, the truths.

My three toes I cannot walk on, because they are crooked and belong to someone else. The Sloth stops my walk, halts my march. I use my tongues to walk, my eyes to guide me.

I do not need feet to walk this path.

All these names, yet none for my own.

It doesn't matter anymore, it's lost in the vastness of the ocean.

* * *

 

He looks into the sky, wondering so much again.

He wonders who he is now, who he is at all.

The sky won't stop crying for him because it knows he deserves to cry, so much, so long.

But he can't, not yet.

He has vowed to cry when peace falls, even if that's after death.

One of the many wonders stirring in the depths of his gray lenses is if he’ll ever be remembered.

He has so many names.

 _Bookworm_ , times so distant.

 _Eyepatch_ , times so dirty.

 _Sasaki Haise_ , times so filthy.

 _One-Eyed King_ , times so promising.

 _King of Fakes_ , times so ignorant.

 _Centipede_ , times so sorrowful.

He had almost forgotten who he is in the vastness of the ocean.

* * *

 

_Much like me._

Sentient beings are all so fragile, so many things, am I right dear reader?

I am not simply one that sits behind pages showing you a story, but I am also one with the story.

They touched that ink, but never saw it.

Because it was a dream.

They work now for reality, because they're sick of simply sitting and dreaming.

One may be brilliant, but if they do nothing, the ocean will surely swallow them whole. One must work to be remembered, and with their resolve maybe I've been inspired to sift through the boundless waves and find my name again.

I hope one day it will cause great waves of change.

* * *

 

He sits, and looks down to the gables of rooftops. Thick black locks soaked in the other’s tears as he looks not to the future, but the past.

If the sky is the future, the ground must hold the past.

It's where fossils sit and hold memorial to times which never will return. Of course it holds the past.

He looks down and visualizes times before when someone’s blood must have soaked the Earth. He wonders when it all started, the fight between ghouls and humans.

Humans have existed for about 200,000 years BCE, so when did it begin?

Perhaps always the blood soaked into the rock layers forever staining time. Maybe not always between humans and ghouls, but just between humans. The idea of it seems so distant, but it's not implausible.

Not at all.

He has seen that even humans are cruel, that if not against ghouls they’d hunger for suffering.

So he wonders if the other’s idea will actually bring peace, or insight worse war.

_Floppy._

* * *

 

One looks forward to future, the other back to the past.

There was a time where I was Amon, wondering if anything truly will change. Unfortunately, he is correct; humans are cruel, people are horrible. I came to realize that's only a horrible side of us, as we dehumanize to justify. We pretend the enemy will kill us, and they very well may. We must speak, and show by actions that we are people.

Now I am Kaneki, faithful in the future. The only way we can change the future is by acting now, we must show our other side, apart from merciless killers.

I'm desperately caught in the waves, but I grab it. I grab and hold tightly for dear life.

My name has returned to me.

Now I must give it to the world, set it back in the ocean not just alone, but with me in tow. My humanity floats with my name.

* * *

 

Yin and Yang, the two of them are.

There's a balance, powerful and potent against the currents of the ocean.

Together, they create their own maelstrom, currents rippling and splashing and changing the mold of the vast blue blanket full of life; endless lives and names flowing in and out and about and eroding and sinking.

They stay afloat on their convection, contradictions to the contractions of currents, never contrite for their courage and conviction even under conditions of correctional currents they create chaos and change in the circumstances of that which is the world.

C, see, sea, so very synonymous yet unseen by most.

Incomprehensible, but also not.

Kaneki and Amon, the ones who see the world through all four of their eyes. The colors that dance in the prism and the light that lines their costumes, coughing up the truths as they get sick from mixing with each other.

There's one without dress that looks at them through a leather-covered book, green ethereal eyes shooting past the pages.

She looks blankly, and writes with her ink-doused fingertips.

* * *

 

_“Are you even sure that what you suggest will work?”_

_Amon skeptically questioned as he narrowed his eyes beneath curved brows._

_“People are people, Amon.”_

_Kaneki muttered before continuing._

_“They aren't innately evil, but there are those impatient. We’ll set this an example for them.”_

That's the conversation Kaneki had anticipated from him, at least.

He was _wrong_.

“So… You saw it, too?”

Amon asked.

“Ruhekampf? Yes, I'm absolutely sure that was it. About the Krähen and the Leo Imperium. Why?”

Kaneki questioned, slightly confused at the response.

“Do you know what ‘Apocrypha is upon us’ means?”

Sweet voices flashed into the mind, memory of the past that never was his own.

Red and bloodshot, he looks through the eyes of someone else speaking- no, thinking to themselves.

  
He's in a math class, algebra. He sits next to nobody in the very back right next to the pencil sharpener, but he actually likes the teacher.

_Why does he feel this way?_

_Why does he know this?_

_Why does he know these things that he never had fathomed before?_

The teacher calls on him, they talking about foiling. He does not know what he says, just that the voice that exits is not his.

In his head he hears a song faintly play, but he has no headphones on. He's losing his mind just at thinking with seemingly no control, until the voice speaks without moving their lips.

_“You must never come here. Never again.”_

Kaneki wants to ask why, but he has no power in this foreign mind as he think what the stranger does, and feels what they do, too.

He's annoyed by the constant whispering around him, paranoid the words are about him.

So many things but all the same voice, thinking over and over in the nothingness coherence.

_“I miss home.”_

_“Is there a home for me?”_

_“No, of course not.”_

_“Except for the sea.”_

_“Yes, except for the sea.”_

_“But then we’ll miss the snow.”_

_“No. The snow is always in my veins.”_

_“Just as the sea is always in my heart.”_

_“How do I know what is true or false now?”_

_“Never know. Believe only what I see.”_

_“Everything is apocryphal now.”_

_“With the birth of the power to search just using your fingertips.”_

_“I miss searching with my feet.”_

_“I miss so much, but it will never come back.”_

_“The ocean is where life came from, and it's where I wish to die.”_

The flashing conversations and conclusions all recorded in the temporal lobe of this stranger. Kaneki sifts through the throbbing head to find what he so desperately tries to remember, despite never experiencing.

_“Get out.”_

The voices begin saying, pushing him out.

He can feel it getting closer, but then is caught by the void within the mind.

_“You can't see it. Not when you're in a place where you are forbidden from.”_

_“Never try again. It hurts in there. You already have so much guilt you bear.”_

And he wonders if he really does regret being there, just before he touches the darkness buried in the stranger’s mind and is violently dragged from it.

_He regrets that he gave up._

* * *

 

My name is apparent and real, but I am but one thing here, in this story.

**_I am Misery._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know the themes for Deloused are gonna be stronger than my squat game UwU
> 
>  
> 
> (don't ask about my squats)


	5. External

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trying to get the crypticness out of my system so I can actually make a story.

There is a split in the pages, here rests the five chapters of continuation temporarily. After them, return here.

Exo - Outer

Skeletal - Structure

Junction - Join

At The Railroad - Depart and Return

Delayed - Procrastinate

Pretend so much, know so little. We lie to ourselves more than anyone else. Dancing so weakly, we found ourselves dead next morning. I see all, build what's destroyed, join what's parallel, paint the sunset, and set off last candles as a lie.

They do.

The acumen hurts as they enter yet another year.


	6. Under the Bridge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Red hot and scalding on mere pale skin, touches amplify the truth.
> 
> WARNING:  
> Referenced smut

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh in this I gave my best try at a referenced smut but it's really implied and non-graphic, meant more in poetic sense.

The city of Tokyo is full of angels and demons and humans. The eyes of it gleam not only from the living but where they dwell, but never reaching the underside of a mournful and memorable bridge.

Some would take refuge there, do their horrific and body-altering drugs to drown the overthoughts, to avoid basking sun from burning their sinful skins; some to bury memories, to die, to take revenge, to hunt, to protect.

If the Bridge ever had eyes, it would essentially be true. No Apocrypha written in the walls under spray paints or blood splatters or mucus or fecal matter. Those things never lie, not scientifically or forensically.

You cannot drown books either, not ideas that can swim. You may burn her leathery cover, but never purge the dreams.

Under that Bridge, a horrible man had the taste of karma, and a wonderful man had the taste of his blindness.

Nobody is innately evil, Kaneki and Amon have come to see.

If it weren't for that Bridge, perhaps they would never have met, nor have seen the light and truth and humanity behind both eyes.

Addiction really kills the worst, Kaneki and Amon both know. The cells in their body, the cancer, the horrible side-effects.

They rejoice in their newfound parallels.

They can not touch by mathematical law, but they do. They can't stop. Each caress is the opening to another world, a one they may not have seen before.

They tend to overlap, not caring for what point on the graph they belong on anymore. They see too much to not look for more of the truth.

Eventually they become the same line, along the same axis and equation. Being one, even under the negative parabola that the Bridge curves on.

Everything is mathematically explainable, but never Apocrypha. As they solve the shapes of the world as they continue to touch, they find a rift that doesn't feel quite right; Apocrypha.

Apocrypha is upon them.

Apocrypha is unlike the Bridge; it's stories unable to be known as true or false, never knowing what is reality much like the paranoia of a Schizoid.

And while odd it seems, Apocrypha is something not so distant, not so ancient and unknown; but is often explored.

It begins with the eye, ends with tea, gruesome pleasurable lighthearted dour ostensible indispensable resource now that it's here.

It replaced our books, a liar to the core and out.

Apocrypha is upon us as well, it plagues us.

“What do you think Apocrypha is?”

Amon would absently ask, another night under the Bridge.

“Apocrypha?”

Kaneki tended to sigh before giving simple and swift answer. This time, gazing below the Bridge’s ridge; to the rain dappling the surface of the water flowing downstream slightly accelerated from the downfall.

“Apocrypha is upon us.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Truth be told, I initially integrated the sentences and realized how awkward it sounded, then decided to keep it because of what it represents.


	7. My Mistress The Sea (Part 2/2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally burrowing out of hazes of confusion.

My Mistress seems so tired of her games, of her singing and dancing to her endless track of old and new songs, to the thrum of easily understood. Her feet bounce against the brim of confusion and into where Cedric, Omar and Cerpin Taxt sit with restless fingers being stopped by the mess we made. We made so much crumble in this nadir, of musks from fecal origin to mincemeat pupil and the vermin of loathing and pockmarked shapes hugging the splintered eyes of lepers.

He split his mind just so he could see beauty in pain, flowers where death rests, colors on overcasts of gray.

_“Tira me a las arañas!”_

Whispers the foreshadow, but not now. Not now, but soon.

 _Soon_. The Mistress promises.

Instead she watched in rain and flood, ruin and her wings; bird perched in the Tree of Chaos in which all things were born from, and knowledge bore its physical form in the shape of an apple.

She watched two sons of utmost chaotic origin push out their eyes and replace them with lens. Abandon their dreams of selfish togetherness, and do for the great or good, even if it meant a sacrifice greater than that which they can pay. Not as long as they are apart.

And the god that planted the seed that grew the Tree of Chaos knew of the coming Apocrypha, Thoth had warned the ephemeral being of the price.

On the Pillars of Creation they conversed.

“Embodiment of Jupiter, Zeus and Lord of Stars; Lifegiver and Lifetaker, Granter of Wishes and Time, He-Who-Has-Calculated-The-Universe, why sacrifice your sanctuary, your almighty truths so these vile creations may twist what you have made? Why?”

Thoth questioned first, merely fragment to the consciousness that lurked the unknown and the darkness.

“I am _Misery_. I cannot exist without the freewill of humanity, as I am a coin of chance. Either they act against my terror, or for it.”

God simply spoke before clapping his hands together in a space without oxygen to carry the sound- but he made it for himself. A bang resounded, and he split to pieces. The many consciences within formed their own skeletal structures and feasted on their causes to gain their muscle.

God made this world so the weary become cognizant of our misery.

* * *

They're outside, below the bridge again. They hadn't tried anything too scandalous; not since last time where Kaneki had heard laughing in his ecstatic frenzy. So now, they sat awkwardly, not knowing where to go and what to say.

“So, you have heard of Ruhekampf before, yeah?”

This time it was Amon who asked.

Kaneki only remembers it vaguely like a trip through acid; could not make out words our sounds or faces, everything was oily and stained in bloody garbles full of pain shrieks. The only thing clear in his hand right now is the sound of rain and the eyes from the sky.

“What do you think Apocrypha is?”

Kaneki asks this time.

“Hmm.”

Amon grunted as he adjusted his sitting position.

“Something that we must overcome.”

“We can't overcome an enemy we know nothing of.”

Kaneki quickly responded, meeting his grey eyes to Amon's black.

Their eyes were complimenting stars, one with so much power so tightly together, and the other a black hole of pressurized wrath.

White dwarf in the expansive void, a telltale insanity doomed to fade; millennia of nuclear-fueled protection, he has nothing left to trust but himself. But he leeches off the stars that surround him, becoming a reborn and infinity star mass, so much to give away. Of course, that meant devouring the mass of his greatest sun.

Yet, the struggle seems to be at a stalemate, this war is no different than any other.

“Perhaps we know more about our enemy than we think.”

Amon suggested.

Perhaps...

Just maybe…

* * *

The eyes see through fabrics of universe and time and path. There is now clarity to this world and it's future.

* * *

“Apocrypha is derived from the English word ‘apocryphal’, something of questionable truth.”

Amon says, skimming through books he had gathered since last time.

“What could that mean?”

Kaneki rather absently asks as he folds his papers on his lap; not on the ground, as he may get the pulpy print drenched.

“Maybe that's what our greatest enemy is.”

Amon mutters.

“Who is ‘us’?”

Kaneki turned to meet Amon's gaze.

“That is something I do not know.”

* * *

Fragments of God smile in happiness. The sons of chaos are sorely close, closest to the truth. As prophesied by their vague completion in conflux;

“As star may waver and suns die forever, a void forever exists; along that, the eyes of allseeing truthseekers. They need not eat the apples, but instead the flesh of that which once was themselves, and that which they have become. Tear through the illusion of life and death, and eat what you find.”

Contrite, Thoth only wishes he had spoken sooner, told his fragments all that he had remembered. Alas, that was all His foresight; Calculator of all Possibilities.

Memories are unchanging, unless they are forgotten.

* * *

They can't do much but smuggle things under the bridge. They're wanted, and it would be rather noticeable news if a bunch of ghouls were heisting libraries and rather mundane public places.

Abandoning their hideouts was a great decision at the time, but it felt all too much like an exodus. Hopping from building to building all throughout Tokyo, a constant seemed to be that damn bridge. It's scent masked most that would come by, and go.

It always smelled like blood, rotten and fresh.

“Why do we keep going here?”

Amon asked, rather a toiling question at the tip of his once-certain tongue.

“I don't know. It's just…”

Kaneki ran his gloved hand on the walls of the graffiti messes; the mark of gang territory, death of members, the blood behind the paint smelling distant of another time which everything had simple solution.

“I understand.”

Amon muttered under his breath.

His words stung of melancholy.

“Apocrypha is upon us… The antithesis is adverse… The acumen will not accede.”

Muttered words between them, sickeningly dripping with sorrowful masking.

“Why did Furuta pull that stunt?”

Amon absently spoke as his back slid down the wall stained of memories.

“I don't know. Perhaps he's aiming to deepen our punishment in this place known as ‘Apocrypha’.”

Kaneki replied, not sure all himself.

The acumen was he, for he'd never give up, no matter how deep he’d get.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm working on another chapter as soon as I can and it actually will have something that isn't just a haze of thought. I'm sorry for deterring the audience so much.


	8. Tira Me A Las Arañas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Throw me to the spiders.

Ghastly his voice always seems to be captured, traversing the megasized city full of lights and sounds that can't possibly be healthy for you, they found their spiders in their backs.

_“Tira me a las arañas!”_

A voice screams, a man about to end himself off of one of these great buildings; an accomplishment by humanity overshadowed by the flesh-eating that lurk.

There is tension buildup between them, one had simply told the other to follow to a special place. As they reached smaller towers, they found themselves in the 20th Ward; a gritty street with faint cracks on the side.

Their final battle as the simple one-sided beings that they were. Now they see what they had failed to before, given an augmented Cerpin Taxt (now of female bearing) their eyes to place in the mouths of beasts. They traded for lenses that are the clearest.

The sewer drain prominent on a wetted street, damp with crusty asphalt robbed of the pretty colors blood tends to weave.

“Why are we _here_ , of all places?”

Amon cringes as he asks, remembering that this was where his true hell began.

“Because _this_ is where the beginning ended, and the end began.”

Kaneki read the contents of his brain.

“It makes my skin crawl here.”

Amon replied, not accounting for the spiders crawling supposedly in his mouth; times brought up only by his ignorance makes him feel like there's a thick stone lodged inside his throat.

That was when the sky opened and the rain stopped, yet a wetness still trailed down their faces.

They cried.

_It's time._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm obsessed with The Mars Volta and Tourniquet Man is my aesthetic.  
> Like a short song, Tira Me A Las Arañas is short to reflect that.  
> The reference to Cerpin Taxt is actually based off of the book for Deloused in the Comatorium which I love.


	9. Drunkship of Lanterns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Burrowing out of fetal confusion rebirths they as the Tremulants.
> 
> Or...
> 
> In which the drug trip of this messy fanfic somewhat ends and Kaneki and Amon somewhat have coherent thoughts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At least... I think so. Please tell me if this isn't working.

It was oddly vivid even for him, especially after months of that same haze that held over his eyes. He acknowledged the cold rain dribbling down his back and the humidity inside his leather mask that smelled of memories, unpleasant to be sure.

Riding tightly along the back of a large truck full of so many smells, he had hoped to mask himself for just a little bit as he looked up into the night sky where no storm’s eye shone to him. Believing that he himself could be invisible, it became true. Nothing to bother him but the cold and damp fabric rubbing his pale skin, painting it light and fiery red in chafing irritation.

It's like he had woken up from a dream, and realized the weight on his shoulders were being lifted slowly by another. He felt inertia, and the connection and disappointment that could come out of doing something wrong.

Kaneki Ken realized the _power_ that he held.

Even if that power was not truly his own, or that he was not born with it, he still held this power. The power of the people, and the power of them in his heart.

Behind false monstrous gnashing teeth, he smiled to the sky, feeling warmth he hadn't felt on his snowy skin in years. On transit to damned musician gatherings and screeching guitar flares; drums thrumming his heartbeat as the bass undertones the nerves humming in this self-aware silence of outer world existences. The last thing was the keyboard, bubbling at the tips of tired and bloody fingers, bruised on a Thursday of playing to impress those who won’t be impressed.

Where the singer was in disagreement with the songwriter; the guitarist. The singer stood at front of all projective glory, where the guitarist was blamed horribly for his unloyalty. Must one be punished for simply wishing to play music?

That's when he realized the band playing in his head was the chorus of death itself, that the ugly sounds were of pain and failure and inertia and car crash.

The guitar was the wheels, singer of damned be the driver, the keyboard the sirens, the drums and bass his body.

Bleeding from his head on falling impact, he felt the darkness consume him once more; the fleeting thought of making haste to safety plagued his dying mind.

* * *

He knew not of why he had worried so much, Kaneki could handle a bump on his head. Hell, he lived through being stabbed in his brain.

So why was Amon feeling concerned so much?

_Was he afraid that Kaneki would forget Apocrypha?_

_Or was he afraid he’d be forgotten himself?_

Surely not; _never_.

Latch on to the thought- if he still could. Think while he holds you, and carries you to a safer place.

* * *

A gasp making way out in form of ghostly whispers, like a billion thoughts of fear brewed and diminished to only a single formula that was someone's other mind, another time.

His head hurt surely, but he's been through worse. He holds it to chain himself to reality aside from complex ringings of nothings but who he was once. Epitome of confusion his mind whirred as song reached conclusion.

_Calm down… It's just a dream…_

Always saying to himself.

He had passed out on the cold desk; not his. He didn't own anything aside from a single red eye and pain flaring in his back just beneath his skin.

He felt like he couldn't move; like he was in a position he once had seen but never been in.

_Hide…_

_Why am I thinking about you?_

Kaneki; his mind held vessels for the dead who once lived here but now live elsewhere in circle purgatory, an invitation if you will. Resonating with another former Tremulant of virtues, the tendrils of their minds had connected in an odd psychedelic dream, many times like before.

It matters not, though.

The time speaks to them now instead of essences of the broken, the words make sense now. They understand finally, but what is there to do?

_**Apocrypha is just as you believe, terminated at the summit of sacrifice and surplus of knowledge and power; knowledge as power. Offer your reality to the world, and they will crave for it as greater quality devours on gnashing teeth of the simple.** _

Well, it was sort of easier.

It was cryptic between them, often leaving them to constantly jot notes down, record the meanings; understand the repetitions. It's like a new language speaking with open mind instead of open mouths.

They analyzed dreams, too.

This dream was about the source of their nightmares for the past month; or at least their transit to it.

The _Drunkship of Lanterns_ , glowing in confusion as it carries dead from the planks spiders were to devour in walking, carrying their prey to their nest filled to the brim with the essences of lies.

It sways, like its lanterns, in the sea of nothings in drunken and hobbled stutters to destination.

The destination was pain.

_I miss the way things were…_

He spoke in his burrowed conscience under the screaming and skittering of spiders in the sea.

He wish everything was clear again, but mixtures of visions of when he lacked eyes then understanding then innocence. A brew of pain he knew and did not.

That was when he opened his eyes, and felt the cold white of a hospital bed.

* * *

 

Kaneki, despite all the reassurance from the doctors, was out cold. He had hit his head pretty hard, in an especially weak spot. Amon may not say anything about it, but he noticed how Kaneki’s healing is not what it used to be.

Not with that arm of his flaring red in scar tissue.

So Amon sat as he wondered what dreams ran through Kaneki's mind, unknowingly passing out in the seat he took his place in.

* * *

 

_Investigator. Look out._

His mind ebbed into and out of his own ears.

A Tremulant soon to be like him in dead eyes, half black half white with taint and innocence.

_“Amon.”_

His lips tugged at the simple syllabled word. No mind invested into it, he himself shocked at the speaking.

Why did he even recognize the ugly nature of Amon’s soul? Why did he recognize the wonderful nature of Amon's soul? _Why?_

_“Kaneki.”_

Amon’s voice prodded at his ears, his being.

Kaneki did not know Amon had seen through his ethereal skin into his ugly and beautiful, and came out liking and forgiving. Kaneki did not believe he deserved forgiveness after all the horrors he's done.

The tendrils of their hairs latched together under sway on a spidery water, the drunkship payed no mind to this as it wrapped them closer, and into awkward and ephemeral arms; metaphorical.

They looked into the truth in their eyes and saw it for brevity before they had docked, and the light overcame them.

* * *

 

The car crash was simply another word for his world shattering to pieces to reveal the true answer to his problems; the mirrored eyes of his in another's taxing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about all of that confusion. The car crash was symbolic as the ending of Kaneki's transit between who he wants to be, and the answers he has found.
> 
> I had this chapter written for weeks, I've just been lazy with uploading it.
> 
> Also, when it referenced him waking in a hospital bed, and the mentions of Hide and wishing things to be as they were all represent what he had and what wasn't worth mourning over.
> 
> Because he had to look forward to the future, which you can guess when that is mentioned.


	10. This Body

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This body's not a temple  
> It's a prison

_The buboes tinged purple with decay in this gangrenous existant ephemera hissed at the touching of that which lacks sin._

__**Apocrypha is upon us;  
This body's not a temple;  
It's a prison.**

__**Every wall inside is burning;  
Inflammatory purgatory in  
Sterile perils of bearers.**

__**We lack what we want;  
Hold what we need.  
Rests under trees;  
Hides its seeds  
As it left me  
To bleed.**

__**Apocrypha is upon us;  
Cry when we die,  
Lie that it's alright**.

* * *

 

_Forget it all._

The Mistress tries to tempt.

_Be sensible. Don't touch what isn't yours._

Kaneki believes the eyes to his waking belong in a pretender, which she was all her life. Just an act for the king to amuse himself with.

The ocean seems bigger than before as he looked to the stars to see that the arms of the galaxy had grown red in normally darker locks. He thought it went by other name, but it was nothing more than another ocean of absence.

She had turned dark, her eyes faltered as stars died.

With the explosion, and creation of a planetary nebula of decay like his insides, he discovered death was a passage to other life. Perhaps he lives all in another world after puncture.

_No_ , he remembers. He will not fall prey to the Mistress, but he listens to her warning.

_What isn't mine?_

He asked himself.

But it's too late.

After months in hiding, a familiar face pops up unexpectedly. Mutsuki, riddled with jealousy for something that Kaneki was sorely confused with until mere minutes after the heartbreaking encounter. When they were safe, Touka had asked him about Hide. The sun he devoured to keep himself living.

_Don't touch what doesn't belong to you._

_It might bend and break and you might lose yourself._

_Don't hold hands with someone meant to create and heal, you destroyer and devourer._

_Don't touch, even if they beckon you._

_Do not touch._

And then, a question flashed in his mind. Touka had asked it before, but…

_“Are you a virgin?”_

No, certainly not. Not since he had faced the horrors of Yamori, where he was defiled in every space within his body. A trail blazed of abrasive touch along the inner walls of his body, a violation that cannot be undone, though his body replaces it within seconds of harm. Times like that reminds him that he was a monster.

* * *

 

****_Apocrypha is upon us;  
Do not touch what is delicate  
For your hands desecrate_

****_Find your place without me in it  
I have no place in your world  
Blood oceans be unfurled_

**_Don't tell me what's sacred_  
An ivory plastered naked  
Figure in the dark  
Mind filled quite stark  
Stealing away fabrics  
Sealing away the eye  
As all stars will die**

****_Don't remember me  
Or how I felt  
Under the starry belt_

****_Apocrypha is upon us;  
Don't be scared of you  
Devour as you must do_

****_We fellow monsters see only  
Under starlight of morning  
And die without mourning_

**_Her dark blueing waters_  
Turn dark over starboard  
Dying red with the smell of shattered  
Dying scents of blood and tatter  
Remember me not please  
I beg of you under her seas**

**_In the end I will die_  
In the bloody water she cried  
Full of her mournful tears  
How odd for a mistress with no fears  
Of monsters just like you  
And me**

* * *

 

In the heat of the moment, Kaneki embraces her, the one thing he had to stay away from; falling in love with her. It was destined to happen, but never was meant to be this way. Why?

And in the end, Kaneki cries.

_To bring life to this world is pain, and to sustain it is misery, to go alone is suffering._

**_Kaneki touched the_ one _forbidden thing to his grasp._ **

And in despair, Amon finds out that Touka is pregnant with Kaneki’s child, who will only suffer as half of a Ghoul, half of a human. Someone who belongs in neither worlds, or so he thinks. Isn't that just contradictory to his own existence?

So he just keeps his mouth shut, and handles it.

It's the cursed body he’s been given that connects him to Kaneki, so it's no temple.

No, this body is a prison.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for not posting in awhile, I've been so busy dealing with so many different things. I planned this right after Drunkship was released but I was too lazy to finish the chapter, and sorry if it's a bit short.


	11. Panic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I woke up this morning and I have up your dreams

A cognizant story to be sure, it wants be be different from the rest so the fingers make it so, plunging into the depths of despair and loathing to pull out the rawest of emotion known to humanity. It is not love, nor anger, fear or hatred, not sadness or anything so mundane. Nay, humanity became used to the feeling of cognizance first and foremost. Recognize they are an entity capable of making things.

Perhaps it is where Ghouls and humans find differences; as humanity first came aware to creation, while Ghouls first came aware of destruction. Such a falsity, as humanity and Ghoul kind all became aware of both simultaneously, so why are Ghouls different?

To put so simply; Ghouls are the same as humans.

* * *

 

Amon, after going his separate ways from Goat and that whole mess, came to meditate on what he wanted to do. Now that he was truly alone, so he thought. He didn't pretend he lacked feelings for Kaneki, but instead he found that within himself that he must be happy for Kaneki. Seeing Kaneki happy made him content, even if he couldn't share the gentile moments with Kaneki.

_Perhaps this was how it was always meant to be._ He thought.

Then a voice came, obstructive, prying at the wrinkles in his neural pathways, a foreign feeling to the inside of his skull.

"Wake up. A nightmare will become of this if only you would idle your hands longer."

"I must not get involved. It is my decision, and mine alone."

"Then all that you cherish shall die. All that you loathe would come to fruition. All that you see will change and tempt your sins to crawl from your pores and into the city's water. Are you willing to blight this city with only your evil?"

"What does this mean?"

"It means that Apocrypha is upon us."

"What is Apocrypha?"

"It is the world run by lies."

* * *

 

It was too good to be true.

Mutsuki really was a demon.

How could he have done this to his love, to his child?

Then, a new demon unleashed.

His name was Fury.


End file.
